Vintage McCoy Vase

I am almost positive this is a McCoy vase. It belonged to my aunt and was given to me by her daughter. This vase has all the bells and whistles for a McCoy vase and is perfect for holding flowers or Christmas greenery.

The color of this vintage  vase is matte off white with flowers and leaves and two handles on the side. It's Lovely and the base is marked USA. The vase measures approximately 7 inches by 7 inches handle to handle.

Getting Ready to Close for the Winter!

Participated in a hands on field day at Beech Mountain Beekeeping on Saturday, August 17. During the class participants learned how to apply pesticides for mites, treatments for nosema, feeding and food supplements for winterizing bees.  

Getting ready to apply Apiguard, a natural non-toxic treatment, used to control varroa mites in honeybee colonies. 

Installed a mouse guard to prevent mice from entering the hive. The girls are busy on this autumn day bring in pollen from the goldenrod.

Added a weatherproof hive wrap to help protect the bees from the fall and winter elements.

The Flying Dutchman

I loved seeing Wagner's The Flying Dutchman presented by the Piedmont Opera. The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Holländer)  which premiered in Dresden in 1843 is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Richard Wagner. The running time is about 3 hours with two intermissions. It is sung in German with English translations projected above the stage.

The staging was impressive and even the imagery with the  three large projection screens drew numerous "wows!" from those in the audience, The music in this production, both vocal and instrumental, really delivered as shown in the video. 

"Conched Out In The Keys" Trip

Wednesday, October  9^th

 6pm-11pm  Cuban Luau @ Smokin’Tuna With Coastline and Dan E Lockemy

11pm-Until… After Party at Ricks with Ray Scott

Thursday, October 10^th 

12noon-4pm YourBeachMusic.com Pool Party w/Ray Scott 

7pm-11pm King Tyrone “Under the Stars” with /Dan E. Lockemy

Friday, October 11^th

12n-4pm YourBeachMusic.com Pool Party with Ray and Coastline

5pm-8pm Sunset Cruise

8pm-Until… Duval Bar Crawl with Everybody!

Saturday, October 12^th

7pm-9pm “Coastline Karaoke” at the Reach Ballroom

9pm-11pm Farewell Gazebo Party (featuring Coastline Acoustic)

Sunday, October 13^th 

7am-10am “Bye Bye Breakfast” (Hugs and Kisses w/ Everybody!)

"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" Cast List

"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is hilarious Christmas tale that is good for all ages. A couple struggling to put on a church Christmas pageant is faced with casting the Herdman kids-- probably the most inventively awful kids in history. You won't believe the mayhem-- and the fun-- when the Herdman's collide with the Christmas story head on!"

Cast List:

Father - Roger Sims

Mother - Jenna Sims

Beth - Sarah Rhymer

Charlie - Jack Price

Ralph - Jackson Barnes
Imogene - Kimmie Yokley
Leroy - Kenan Sims

Claude -  Dylan Lowe

Ollie - Christian Lowe

Gladys -  Rachel Rogers

 Alice - Christen Thompson

Mrs. Armstrong - Marcia James
Mrs. Slocum - Amber Scott
Mrs. Clark - Gloria Klingler

Mrs. Clausing - Angela Hodges

Mrs.McCarthy - Kelly Keegan

Maxine - Regan Heberle 

Elmer - N/aN/a

Hobie - Asher Sims
David -  Cole Rigsbee
Beverly - Lauren Griffith
Fireman - Matt Norcross
Shirley-  Junebug Grubb
Juanita - Tatum Davis
Doris - Cameron Sims
Reverend Hopkins - Gary Rhymer
Ensemble - Victoria Danielik
Ensemble - Tatyana Jackson
Ensemble -  Abby Ray
Ensemble - Allyn Sims
Ensemble - Victoria Uchman

Ensemble -  Micah Welborn

Director: Justin Bulla
Stage Manager:  Tina Evans

Autumn Foraging

Last week the "girls" were busy bringing in loads of bright orange pollen filling the frames in the hive up with nectar from fall plants on this beautiful autumn day. No foraging today with temperatures below freezing in Banner Elk, North Carolina. 

Catching a Bee Swarm - Part 1

Swarming is an instinctive part of the annual life cycle of the honeybee. This swarm landed on a limb nearby our apple orchard. After they land, scout bees are sent out to find a permanent home. When they return, they will do a dance that indicates the direction of the new home so if you want free bees you need to catch them soon.

Catching a Bee Swarm - Part 2

Mark from Beech Mountain Beekeeping is using a bee brush to brush the bees on the frame. Then the frame is placed in the swarm box. Once bees start going into the box, the rest will follow like ants marching to the ant hill.

Catching a Bee Swarm - Part 3

Ready to capture the swarm, a cloth was laid out below the swarm in front of the swarm box. The majority of the bees have been shaken on to the cloth and have begun entering the hive.

Mutinus caninus - a strange, stinky mushroom

This mushroom was found growing in the apple orchard near the blueberry bushes. I was curious to identify the mushroom and after some research found that this mushroom is Mutinus caninus, commonly known as the dog stinkhorn. It is a small thin, phallus-shaped woodland fungus, with a dark tip. The mushroom is about the size of your pinky in length and diameter but some text says they can get several times that size. This mushroom grows from a white egg and is covered by a decaying slime. The edibility of the mushroom is listed as “of no interest” but who would want to eat it. The slime attracts flies as you can see on the photo. The flies pick up the mushroom’s spores and deposit them elsewhere to help spread this mushroom around. A very strange, stinky critter indeed. 

Buckwheat for Bees

Being a new beekeeper and wanting to have plants for the bees to forage, buckwheat seems to be a good nectar source for honey beekeepers to provide for bees. I bought two packages of buckwheat seed as a lark

at Beech Mountain Beekeeping and sowed the seed randomly in the field near the beehive.  
Typically the seeds should germinate and emerge within three to four days. Plants grow rapidly, producing small heart-shaped leaves with slender, hollow stems. Surprisingly the flowers began to appear about three weeks after planting. 
Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is a broadleaf plant native to northern Asia. The seeds are brown in color, roughly the size of a soybean, irregularly shaped, with four triangular surfaces. At the peak of flowering, the buckwheat plant has striking white petals. After a flower is pollinated, a full-sized seed will form within 10 days. Seeds appear and mature earlier on the lower stem, with seed development continuing up the stem as the plant matures.  The bees are very happy!

Common Orange Daylily

These are photos of the orange daylilies, which have been blooming since about the first of July at our mountain home.  This lily is a species of a daylily called Hemerocallis fulva, and has many common names, including orange daylily, tawny daylily and the “ditch lily.” These lilies came from a friend, who  was thinning them out and told me to help myself to as many as I wanted.



The flowers open and greet the morning with their six-part petals facing the sun and close around dark, never to open again therefore the “daylily” name. With many flower buds on each stem and many stems in a clump, these lilies may bloom for several weeks.The orange petals often have ruffled edges and a stripe down the center of each petal and maybe doubled. With all the rain this summer in the mountains, they have thrived and are very showy and attention getting.

Chocolate Chess Pie

This recipe is so easy and the pie is so good and very rich. It may not look so pretty but some people say it’s the best pie they have ever put in their mouth.  Just add a little whipped cream or ice cream and you will have a real treat.

1 (9 inch) piecrust, unbaked

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 stick butter or margarine

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 eggs

1 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Melt margarine/butter and cocoa. Combine all the other ingredients and mix well.  Beat entire mixture with mixer.  Pour into uncooked pie shell and bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 25 to 45 minutes until set. Let cool before cutting.   Enjoy!

Note:  This pie will look like it is not done.  It puffs up during cooking and will kind of fall once you take it from the oven. 

My Grandmother's Garden Tea Roses

My grandmother’s garden tea roses are in bloom.  I'm not sure when she planted this rose or how she obtained it  but  I do remember the sight and smell of this rose brings back fond childhood memories. 

This rose does quite nicely in a partly shaded location next to our garden shed and tolerates the harsh mountain winters. The buds are reddish pink, opening to pale pink flowers that quickly fade to blush white. As the flowers open, some of the reddish color on the buds remains on the outer petals for a short time. This blush-pink rose has long rambling canes that sometimes get in the way when mowing the lawn. The blooms are about 2-3 inches, cupped and quartered with a button eye and are blessed with a strong sweet fragrance. I'm not sure of the identity of this rose but think it is characteristic of the  "Arcata Pink Globe" rose. 

Lupine Garden

These pictures are from my lupine garden in Banner Elk taken this spring. The purple lupines were planted by my Mother many years ago and I planted the others to add to her lupine garden.

“They stood. And stood for something

Just by standing

In waiting. Unavailable. But there For sure.

Sure and unbending.

Rose-fingered dawns and navy midnight’s flower.Seed packets to begin with, pink and azure,

Sifting lightness and small jittery promise:

Lupin spires, erotics of the future,

Lip-brush of the blue and earth’s deep purchase.

O pastel turrets, pods and tapering stalks

That stood their ground for all our summer wending

And even when they blanched would never balk. 

And none of this surpassed our understanding."

Unknown Author

First Bee Hive Inspection - June 1, 2013

I'm ready in my bee suit, gloves and hive tools for my first hive inspection two weeks after installation of the bee package. 

1.  The cover and crown board are removed for hive inspection with the frame rack hanging on side of hive.

2.   Using hive tool to loosen frame and place frames on frame rack.

3.  Observed new wax drawn on foundation frame.

 4.  Observed capped honey, pollen and nectar on frames.

5. Looking at how the bees are using their wax comb - raising brood and storing nectar.

6.  Gently replacing removed frames by into hive.

A great day in the hive. I was able to see the marked Queen and pleased with the productively of the bees.

"Steel Magnolias" Kicks Off Summer Theater

Summer theater series kicks off with "Steel Magnolias"

by Meghann Evans, Managing Editor

Meghann Evans | The Stokes News

Laurie Jernigan as Truvy Jones, Kara Slawter as Annelle Dupuy, Angela Hodges as Clairee Belcher and Carrie Atkins as Shelby Eatenton, pictured clockwise from top left, perform “Steel Magnolias.”

Meghann Evans | The Stokes News

Katherine Gambill, right, gets the crowd laughing with her portrayal of Ouiser Boudreaux in the Stokes County Arts Council’s production of “Steel Magnolias.”

Meghann Evans | The Stokes News

A crowd gathers at King Central Park Sunday for the final performance of “Steel Magnolias.”

The King Central Park Amphitheater was transformed into a beauty shop last weekend for the opening production in the Sauratown Summer Theatre Series.

The new summer series kicked off with a production of “Steel Magnolias.” Local actresses brought the popular story to life on stage Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon. The production was presented by the Stokes County Arts Council and directed by Justin Bulla. Several local sponsors made the event possible.

“The whole run of this show has just been incredible,” said Bulla Sunday afternoon.

Bulla said he had received much positive feedback, and about 100 people had gathered at the park each night. “I couldn’t be more happy, more thrilled,” he said.

Eddy McGee, Stokes Arts Council executive director, said, “I thought it went very, very well.”

It was the first large scale production the Arts Council had opened at Central Park, and McGee said it went even better than anticipated.

“We had a really good crowd in attendance all three performances,” McGee noted. He said many people traveled from outside the county to view the production.

“Steel Magnolias” was written by Robert Harling and later adapted into a popular film.

“It is really, really good,” said Cathy Moore of the Stokes County production Sunday afternoon. “I love the set.”

Moore was familiar with the film, and she thought the actresses in Stokes County did a fabulous job. She has attended Stokes County Arts Council events in the past. “And they’re always good,” she said.

Olivia Shelton said during intermission, “I’m thoroughly enjoying how the characters are evolving.” She also complimented the set and how the good acoustics allowed people in the park to hear the dialogue without losing any lines.

The cast for the production included Kara Slawter as Annelle Dupuy, Laurie Jernigan as Truvy Jones, Carrie Atkins as Shelby Eatenton, Kelly Fayne as Mary Lynn Eatenton, Angela Hodges as Clairee Belcher, and Katherine Gambill as Ouiser Boudreaux. Ed Gambill did the voice of the DJ. Tina Evans served as stage manager and Patti Dunlap as props mistress. In addition to serving as director, Bulla was the set designer. Ed Gambill was sound designer and LeVan Moxley was sound technician.

“They put so much work into it,” said McGee.

The Sauratown Summer Theatre Series will feature three more shows this summer: “Dearly Departed,” “Honky Tonk Angels,” and “The Hero Squad vs. The Princess Snatchers.” Auditions for these shows will be held Thursday at Mount Olive Elementary School from 7 to 9 p.m. People will be asked to read from a script, and there are roles for people of all ages.

McGee said the Arts Council has sponsored the Winter Dessert Theatre Series and children’s community theater in the past, but it has not done summer productions catered to adults like this.

“We just wanted to give adults some theater during the summer,” McGee explained.

He said the King Central Park Amphitheatre is a great venue for this year’s series. North Carolina is known for its outdoor theater performances.

Plans are already in the works for some shows next year. Though it is dependent on funding and personnel, McGee said, “We’d like to continue it every year.”